The Cold Days

<p>I will die up here in the high mountains she thought. And be like Solanda Mother's old friend who vanished as the deer vanish.</p><p>(A demon tricked me by looking like a boy).</p><p>You climb too high the hunter said squatting down on his haunches and leaning against a boulder. Nothing eat up here.</p><p>Mira finally got her voice: Why are you here?</p><p>I follow you. He smiled.</p><p>Mira stared down the great mountain knowing she was trapped that she had climbed too high where monsters are. He had stalked her like a deer. And she had been as foolish as a deer.</p><p>To kill me?</p><p>He gave her a surprised then puzzled look. Why I want to kill you?</p><p>To give the gods their sacrifice.</p><p>He looked at her for a long time and Mira felt strange. He was handsome his hair and beard night-black his blue eyes arrogant confident. A smile that was very close to a smirk. He was a savage-looking boy but she saw that he was a boy not two seasons older than her.</p><p>His deerskin leggings were well-used and torn ragged made by skillful hands but not any of the river tribes. Slung over his back was a very ornate spear thrower. A brace of feathered arrows in a wolfskin pouch flared out of his back. His right fist gripped a long spear crowned with a tooth of flint. Rawhide thongs belted his leggings; on his waistbelt a stone hatchet and long stone knife were strapped. His arms and legs rippled with savage muscles.</p><p>Mira clutched her little pointed stick. She edged down the mountain slope to see what he would do. Why did you follow me?</p><p>He was a shadow now against the boulder but she could see his white teeth grinning.</p><p>You are very pretty he called out of the evening. </p><p>He didn't follow her. He wasn't going to hurt her. She scuttered down the slope grinning now heart pounding and sudden blood in her face.</p><p>What he said to me...!</p><p>You climb too high Pretty One! his voice echoed behind her making a crazy thrill in her stomach. Run home before it gets dark.</p><p>Her face burned red. Why! she called grinning over her shoulder.</p><p>Because a knife-tooth has come to this mountain.</p>